Hidden Rage
by gloveblade
Summary: What if Vegeta and Kuririn had not returned in time to meet up with Trunks after he was defeated by Cell? (AU: live action, dark)


_Disclaimer: Own DBZ? No, I don't. But should Toriyama ever want to make it into a novel form, perhaps he could give me a call...? _

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Author notes:

_The names have been changed to disassociate these characters and their experiences from the anime. It is an attempt to see what Dragonball Z might have been like in a darker, more realistic world._

Kibou (hope) - Trunks

Hokoi (pride) - Vegeta

Shinko (heart of a child) - Goku

Fuku (revenge) - Cell

AH# (artificial human #) - Android #

_I called this my serious DBZ and I meant it. The humor is cut and the overtone is dark. In the series this is the scene after Trunks has been defeated and released by Perfect Cell. Unlike Toriyama's version, Kuririn and Vegeta have not yet appeared._

_A little about Kibou:_

Although his eyes were clearly his father's they were worn with sorrow and suffering. His skin was no single tone. The countless number of beatings his body had received during his young life left a disturbing design of splotches and scars on his skin.

_Kibou is kind because of his suffering, in contrast to his father, whose trials make him bitter. Kibou is very much a people person, having come from a world where there is strength in numbers and humans must stick together to survive. He is also very sensitive to others' pain and eager to help those in need. He is idealistic of those he hasn't met before (namely, Shinko and Hokoi) and is single-minded to a fault, especially concerning his mission._

_The following section probably best demonstrates the extent of the violence (especially the emotional side) in my story. Please keep in mind this is the one and only time Kibou..."loses it"._

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**Hidden Rage**

_The barren desert to his right,a petrified forest to his left, Kibou stands alone. After he has been shamefully beaten by Fuku and allowed to live, he finds his musing interrupted by a voice behind him._

"I will help."

It was the AH16. He stumbled forward in mechanical fashion nearly tripping over himself. Kibou was immediately en guarde.

"What is this? Aren't you AHsalso programmed to deceive?" Kibou's eyes were unyielding. Before him stood the quintessence of all that had made his world miserable. Death, destruction, the wicked pleasure the Artificial Humans of his reality had taken from the misery and fear they carelessly created. Now this AH also stood before him in this world. As if two weren't enough; there had to be three.

"Take me to one who can repair me. I will help to stop—"

"You liar!" Kibou had had enough. His mind had raced back to his past. How could he have ever forgotten...the child wasn't much younger than himself...there was no food in the town...the child...he had been left behind or lost as well. Kibou screamed at the boy not to go toward the AH but the boy wouldn't listen...he was already there in front of the demon with open arms and grateful tears to accept the fruit AH17 was offering..."Seems these humans are born foolish," the altered voice mused and threw the treasure of the child's stomach behind him like worthless rock. Without a second thought, the child scooted around the AHs legs to race for the prize his hopeful eyes were locked upon. He never made it past the AH's side. With a single swift kick, his ribs were caved into his chest and his body hit the rubble of a collapsed building with a sound like a heavy blanket against the concrete. His ragdoll body fell limp on the ground. Kibou was four and completely helpless.

He wasn't helpless now. The AH16 stood before him beaten down and weak, while Kibou himself was stonger than before. This was the power over the AHs he had come for...to do to them what they had done over and over again in his world. It all came rushing in on him at once...the terror, the pain, the people-no, the bodies... the blood, the rubble... his family, his father, mother, his sensei, Gohan and that last fight... the promise he made, the rain and darkness, the artificial lights, still flashing in the now ghost city, and the artificial enemy... his sensei dead and all the anger, rage and helplessness, all the previous failures... the shame he felt from his father when he came here, the hopelessness that would not retreat... it would all come here, too. It followed him like a plague, this vile force he was helpless against- _No! NO! Not again, I can't let this happen over again_!

Kibou's attack was ruthless. His anger overpowered his speed making him slow and careless in his attacks, but the machine was too far gone with his own injuries to defend. The first blow was to the shoulder, the weakened metal caved in easily under Kibou's enraged fist...for the boy whose ribs caved in at AH17's kick. The second came across the jaw as AH16 tried to protest...for all those who begged for their and their family's lives delivered from the AH's play. Kibou's roundhouse kick knocked AH16 against one of the petrified stumps. Kibou flew at his prey in furious rage.

Kibou knelt down beating the scrap heap that was once the AH16 with both fists, letting out a loud cry each time. The AH had long since now lost power and memory; chips, armored metal plates, and wires littered the ground around him like autumn leaves. Kibou's cries of anger fell into cries of despair, his hands no longer pounding the wreckage of his doing beneath him, but plummeted one more time before he fell forward himself, sobbing. He was grateful no one was there to witness him, especially his father. He thought about his failure to stop Fuku. He thought about what he had just done and the thoughts that had raced through his mind. It occurred to him that the AH might have been honest in his offer; it occurred to him that if that were so then he was no different than the AHs that had mercilessly destroyed his reality. It occurred to him but only for a moment; even if all that were true, surely he couldn't have taken the risk of AH16 finding Shinko, whose death was his sole programming. No matter how much he reasoned this in his mind, however, Kibou felt helpless...and guilty...

Now he understood why Hokoi spent so much time alone...when no one is around to watch, you can see what you really are. Drained from his flood of emotion, Kibou welcomed the empty air and cried...alone.


End file.
